Time Windows (7 page)

She thought longingly of the cool space they'd cleared under the boxwood bushes. Why didn't anybody come? Where was Simon? He was "it," wasn't he? Surely she had not chosen such a hard place to find. How thirsty she was! The stairway walls seemed to close in on her, and still no one came ... Just as she stood up to declare the game over in disgust and run downstairs for some frosty lemonade, the terror hit her. It hit her with real force, throwing her back down on the steps and leaving her gasping for breath. She couldn't move. Cries reverberated in her head, in the air, seeming to come from the attic overhead.
Help me!

Had she cried out herself? But she could not open her mouth, could not even stand up again.
Paralyzed—oh, God! I'm going to die,
she thought quite clearly. She began to tremble violently.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the terror was gone—as if it had never been there at all—and Miranda ran downstairs. Helen, Uncle Willy, and Aunt Belle were just returning from their trip into town. She threw herself into her mother's arms, sobbing with remembered fear and the relief that she
could
cry, that she was not dead. But even in finally telling her mother what had happened, she held back about the dollhouse, about her sense that it was calling to her. The dollhouse was
hers;
in some way she felt she had made a promise not to betray its secrets.

Helen listened quietly as Miranda spilled out the horror of the steps, with her eyes still wide and her lips trembling. Then the two of them went up together and sat on the attic steps. But the terror did not return. Miranda felt bewildered and a bit foolish, but Helen wasn't laughing.

"Sometimes things happen," she began slowly. "Girls your age ... Well, when your body starts changing, you can get funny emotions. When I was your age I used to feel overwhelmingly sad, all of a sudden, and start bawling for absolutely no reason—and then just as suddenly the sadness would be gone. Maybe your terror is something like that." She patted Miranda's knee.

"Hormones, huh?" said Miranda, her voice still shaky.

"You've had a lot of changes in your life lately, Mandy. And I think You've been alone too much since we moved here. I know it's great to be away from New York crowds, but maybe you need to get out more. Do things with Dan Hooton, why don't you? Go bike riding. He seems nice enough."

"Okay," promised Miranda. The remnant of terror receded.

Aunt Belle had a headache and spent the rest of the afternoon lying in Helen and Philip's room with the door closed and a cool cloth on her forehead.

 

Evening found them all gathered once more on the porch, catching each other up on all the family news. They sat in the same places they had the night before, as if each seat had been assigned by some invisible teacher: Aunt Belle in the wicker rocker by the front door, Uncle Willy across from her. Helen sat in one corner of the couch with the green-and-white-checked cushions. The other corner, where Philip had sat, was empty. Miranda sat with her cousins in a row on the creaky green-cushioned swing at the end of the porch. Only Miranda's legs were long enough for her feet to touch the porch floor, which was covered with a long straw runner, so she was in charge of kicking the swing back and forth with her toe. The creak of the swing mingled with the click-clack-click of Aunt Belle's knitting needles.

Aunt Belle knitted furiously. Miranda had never known her to be without a piece of knitting nearby—sweaters for everyone in bright, warm winter colors that seemed too hot to touch on a summer's night, made from thick wool that she carried around in the deep pockets of her sundress.

Back and forth creaked the swing as Miranda's toe moved it. Click-clack-click whispered Aunt Belle's needles in the growing darkness of the porch. Background noises intruded now and then: an occasional car whisking past beyond the screen of bushes, chirps of crickets in the trees, and shouts of Dan and Buddy playing Frisbee tag across the road. Uncle Willy's cigarette glowed in the dusk. Miranda and Helen met each other's eyes and grinned: if Philip were home, Uncle Willy would be in for a lecture on the evils of nicotine.

"When I was little," said Uncle Willy, "we kids used to rock in a swing just like that, and once we rocked so hard and fast, it tipped right over backwards into the bushes. Remember, Helen?"

Miranda continued rocking. Anni and Simon squirmed on the seat next to her. "Well, were you hurt?" asked Anni.

"Nope," he said. "But your Aunt Helen broke her nose."

Miranda's eyes widened. "You never told me about that, Mither!"

Helen was smiling at her brother. "I'd forgotten all about it."

Aunt Belle glanced at them, unusually silent. She began working a new color into the sweater she was knitting for Anni.

"Well, it was a long time ago," Uncle Willy said.

"How old were you?" asked Anni.

"About as old as you are now, little dumpling." Uncle Willy's friendly laugh boomed out in the darkness. Anni scowled at the pet name, a relic from her plump babyhood.

When Miranda was younger she had often wished rather guiltily that Aunt Belle and Uncle Willy were her parents, Simon and Anni her brother and sister, and their house on the rocky Maine coast her house, too. She wished this when life in their tiny New York apartment seemed stifling, when her parents were busy with their work, when the gray city streets depressed her.

Uncle Willy was full of jokes and stories, and he never tired of playing with his children. Aunt Belle was gentle and cheerful, and she spoke with a drawling southern accent even though she'd lived in Maine for years. Miranda had often tried to mimic Aunt Belle's soft voice, but she could never manage to keep from laughing. Aunt Belle tried to coach her. "The trick," she said, "is to make all one-syllable words have two syllables, and all two-syllable words have three, and so on." They had both dissolved in laughter at Miranda's attempts.

"Mom," said Anni suddenly, breaking the stillness on the porch and jolting Miranda out of her musing. "Can me and Simon and Mandy go play with those kids?" She jumped off the swing.

"
Can
who play with those children?"

"Me and Simon and Mandy."

"
Think,
young lady," snapped Aunt Belle.

Miranda's eyes widened. She had
never
heard Aunt Belle snap before.

Uncle Willy raised his eyebrows at Aunt Belle and pulled Anni to him. "Your grammar, dumpling."

"All right,
may
I play with them?" Anni squirmed away from him, losing patience.

"And who else?" Aunt Belle's voice was still cold, still not her own.

"May Mandy and Simon and I."

"That's better." She settled back to her knitting. Click-clack-click. She smiled at her husband.

"Well, dearest Mother?" persisted Anni, sarcastic now.

Aunt Belle stopped smiling. "I don't know about Miranda, but you may not. We don't know them."

Helen laughed apologetically. "We don't know the boys well—Mandy has been too busy—but we were over at their house the other evening..." Her voice trailed off. "I've spoken with their mother several times. They live just across the street in that old house that's the Garnet Museum now. They're perfectly nice boys."

Simon pulled on Miranda's hand. "C'mon, then. Let's go!"

Aunt Belle's knitting needles stopped abruptly. "I said no, Simon. You stay away from those children, do you hear me?"

Uncle Willy glanced sharply at Aunt Belle. "What's with you? Of course they can go play!" He nodded to Simon. "Go ahead, kids."

Miranda stretched in the swing. "You two go on. I'll sit here."

Anni scowled. "Why is everybody being so weird?"

"I'm not! I just want to sit here. Maybe later."

"Later you three children shall all be put to bed," said Aunt Belle angrily.

Miranda bristled at the cold, formal tone. What was eating Aunt Belle? She felt her own temper rise. "I'm thirteen years old," she snapped. "No one puts me to bed!"

"Mandy—," chided Helen.

Simon and Anni leaped down the creaky steps into the yard. Behind the bushes and the magnolia tree their laughter and shrieks rang gaily. Miranda turned sideways on the swing and put her feet up. Something seemed wrong here. She felt out of place. She wished she had gone with her father. If she had, she would be safe and cool in the Rosenbaums' tiny, air-conditioned apartment.

Safe? Odd word. She was safe here, of course. Yet, there
was
something. She couldn't put her finger on it. Everything seemed normal enough—except for Aunt Belle's bad temper—and yet the air was different. Charged, somehow. She tried to pinpoint it. Sort of like the fear she'd felt last night and on the attic steps today. A tension—like the first stages of the dollhouse terror: an intensified awareness of the slightest nuances in voices and atmosphere.

But how could she feel terror in such an ordinary setting? This was a cozy family reunion. She wasn't even alone. A porch. Her aunt, uncle, and mother talking softly in the dusk. Ice clinking in drinks. A June evening, tree frogs everywhere, and the sweet smell of magnolia blossoms.

The smell of magnolia blossoms.

Something nudged Miranda's memory. Terror and the smell of magnolias? Miranda rubbed her eyes. No connection there—and yet, and yet there was
something...

"Mither?"

"Hmm?"

"Mither, come sit with me."

Helen smiled and stood up, smoothing her pleated summer skirt, and sat down again next to Miranda on the swing. She drew her long legs up under her skirt and circled Miranda's narrow shoulders with one arm. She smelled of fresh air. Miranda leaned her head on Helen's shoulder, eyes closed. They rocked gently.

A red Frisbee landed with a clatter on the porch floor, and Buddy's face appeared in the bushes by the porch railing. "Oops!" he laughed. "That was out of bounds."

Uncle Willy leaned over, retrieved the Frisbee, and sailed it out over the bushes. "Here you go, fella."

"Thanks!"

There was laughter in the bushes, and Simon's fair head appeared next to Buddy's. He waved the Frisbee. "Thanks, Dad. I guess I threw it too far. Don't know my own strength!"

With a low sound in her throat, Aunt Belle was on her feet. "Simon!" Miranda jerked her head off Helen's shoulder, startled by the venom in Aunt Belle's voice. "You come up here right now, young man! And where is Anni?"

"She's right here," said Simon in a small, uncertain voice.

Buddy looked from Simon to his mother, then lifted the Frisbee from Simon's hands. "Guess you gotta go," he said, shrugging. "See you later."

"Get back up on this porch this instant," hissed Aunt Belle. "Didn't I say you weren't to play with those street children? Didn't I warn you?"

"Belle!" began Uncle Willy, but Aunt Belle was off the porch already, pulling Anni by the arm and herding Simon up the steps in front of her.

"Now you two are in for it," she stormed. "I won't be disobeyed!" She sat down heavily in her chair, still holding Anni by the arm. Even in the semi-darkness, Miranda could see that Anni had turned white under her tan.

Aunt Belle pushed Simon toward Uncle Willy. "Well, William, I trust you to take your son in hand. Flagrant disobedience! I won't have it!"

Simon grabbed his father's hand. "Dad! What's wrong with her? We didn't do anything—!"

He broke off as Aunt Belle raised a hand and slapped him across the cheek.

Uncle Willy gathered the sobbing boy into his arms and glowered at Aunt Belle. "I think," he said in a tight voice, "it's time for us all to go get ready for bed." He stood up. "Come on, Anni."

Simon shuffled down the steps and over to the camper parked in the driveway. Helen cleared her throat, frowning. "
Really,
Belle! What in the world is wrong? There was no harm in it. Willy told the kids they could play—and the Hooton boys are nice—"

Aunt Belle still held Anni tightly. "Harm in it? I don't know about that. But the simple issue is that I won't have my children playing with street children. I will not have it said that my children are common."

"Come on, Belle, let's go," said Uncle Willy. Helen set her lips.

"Go on over with Simon, Anni," said Uncle Willy, when Aunt Belle did not move.

"No!" Aunt Belle's voice was razor sharp.

The stillness on the porch was complete. Miranda sensed, rather than saw, the icy glitter of Aunt Belle's eyes. Aunt Belle stood suddenly and crossed to where Miranda and Helen sat in the swing. Miranda shrank back. Aunt Belle lifted the unoccupied corner cushion of the swing and removed one of the thin wooden slats that supported the cushion. She turned to Anni, who backed away.

"Belle!" Helen jumped up.

"You stay out of this, Helen," warned Aunt Belle. "You handle your daughter the way you like, and leave me to mine."

Miranda squeezed her eyes shut.

"All right, then, young miss." And with that, Aunt Belle turned the child over her knee and lifted the slat. Anni let out a strangled cry. In an instant, Uncle Willy seized her from Aunt Belle's grip and guided her away, down off the porch into the night. Miranda could hear Anni's sobs from the camper. Another sound broke in, too: the sharp, hard hits of wood on flesh as Aunt Belle, who sat staring over the bushes, smacked the slat into her hand again and again and again—and then the chorus of crickets and tree frogs resumed, and the smell of magnolia was everywhere. The smell of magnolia! A closed feeling bore down on Miranda, stifling her—the feeling of having been here before, exactly so, but differently so—and the terror rising to her throat paralyzed her limbs. A deep moan escaped from her throat.

Helen grabbed Aunt Belle's wrist as the slat came down on her palm again.

"That's
enough,
Belle!" she shouted and threw the slat clattering onto the floor.

Aunt Belle sucked in her breath and stared at her reddened palm. There was silence on the porch for the space of a heartbeat. "Oh, my God," Aunt Belle whispered.

The scent of magnolia blossoms was very strong. And Miranda was thirsty.